What do you look for when you buy a toy for your Favourite Feline? Colour? Price? Celebrity endorsement? We thought long and hard about what makes a good cat toy when we created the toys for our Cat Habitat range. Of course there’s no one toy which will float every cat’s boat, but there are certain attributes that you should look for when choosing your next toy.

What to look for when you choose a cat toy:

Safety: Cat play can get pretty aggressive so make sure whatever you are giving your favourite feline to play with doesn’t have anything sharp such as pieces of wire, which can cut them or you. Check that any parts that can potentially become separated from the toy won’t do damage if swallowed. Here I would include those plastic eyes that are stuck to toys, or any kind of rubber band that can get lodged in puss cat’s intestinal tract

Interaction & Independence: Hopefully your cat likes you, and therefore wants to spend time playing with you. As such have one or two toys that your favourite feline and you play with together like our Cat Teasers.
Soph doing her best at killing her Ewe Who Cat Teaser toy.

Likewise, you’ll need a couple of others that can be left out that they can play with independently while you’re not around, helping pass the time until you come home again. Both our Fur Balls and The Whole Box and Mice fit the bill nicely here, and should a bare human foot tread on them, it won’t hurt!

Fingers and toes: Avoid toys that require your cat to attack human fingers or toes especially with kittens as this will be giving them the signal that your digits are pieces of play equipment to be chased, bitten and hunted for the entire duration of your life together

Toys that make noise: If you insist on buying a toy with a bell or any other noise making equipment, I think it should be a requirement that said toy be sold along with a set of earplugs. That tinkling sound will send you bonkers. I have a blanket ban on any toys that make noise at Cat Habitat HQ because I need no additional assistance in going bonkers thank you very much;

Your mine mouse!

Size: As with most things in life, size really does matter. This is particularly true when it comes to toys that are intended as substitute prey satisfying puss cat’s need to hunt. If we look at the types of prey outdoor cats come home with, and then kindly leave on the doormat, the deceased critters are usually skinks, mice, maybe a small bird. Their common characteristics being that (while alive!) they are small and light, enabling them to move fast. As we were creating our Fur Balls and Whole Box & Mice toys, we watched how Pussa and Soph would play with them and observed how they were light enough to be batted around and rolled along the floor, and also small enough for them to carry them in their mouths;

Catnip?: I read recently that only about 50% of cats are stimulated by catnip, and Pussa and Soph are definitely in the other 50% who don’t give a toss about the stuff. Frankly if the toy is rubbish to begin with, stuffing it full of catnip is unlikely to make it any better.

My fellow Pet Parent and I have bought some absolute shocker cat toys over the years. I would probably vote as our worst purchase what I can only describe as a catified version of a human baby’s play mat. It came complete with two arches that went diagonally across the mat from which various synthetic felt animals, mirrors and bells hung off. It was ugly, stupid and neither Pussa nor Soph gave it the time of day. It was on sale though.

Simple toys are often the best, and if they come in a paper bag or box, then you can have the toy and the cat will entertain itself with the packaging.

How often have you looked at your cat and thought “seriously cat, how many hours in a day can you actually sleep”?

The short answer is that most cats will sleep between 12 and 16 hours every day, and there are a few reasons for this:

3 reasons why cats sleep so much:

Domesticated cats still retain the hunting instincts of their wild cat cousins and hunting takes up a tremendous amount of energy when you need to stalk, pounce, and chase your prey for an uncertain period of time. Cats aren’t scavengers, and in the wild their prey needs to be fresh, requiring them to ambush their prey and apply short and intense bursts of energy;

No doubt you’ve recognised that your cat is most active in the early evening. At Cat Habitat HQ we call this The Bewitching Hour, when Pussa and Soph appear to go bonkers by jumping at shadows, pouncing on their Fur Balls and launching attacks on the Pet Parent’s legs. In the wild this is the time of day when much of their prey is also active and their likelihood of hunting success is much higher. Thus, this spike in activity late in the day means that they spend most of the daylight hours sleeping to conserve energy;

Just like humans, when your cat is not feeling well, they will sleep more so their body can focus on healing. Also, older cats are likely to sleep more than other adult cats.

So does it matter where cats sleep? To you…probably. To your cat…less so. Your cat’s requirements are pretty basic – it should be warm, cosy and THEIR territory. Each cat will like something a bit different and the options available to Pet Parents are extensive. When we designed our sleep range we looked at Pussa and Soph’s behaviour and determined that sometimes they like to have something deep that they can snuggle down into like our Cat Cot.

Simba lives in Sth Africa and obviously loves her Slumber Yard especially in the morning sun

Other times something that’s shallower while still providing a degree of “protection” is called for. Our Slumber Yards are made with a wooden frame which is 10cm high making it ideal for older cats who might be less mobile.

Otherwise you can opt for a cat blanket-style bed like our Feline Futon. The advantage of these are that you can put them anywhere that your cat likes to sleep. At Cat Habitat HQ we have them on the sofa, the Pet Parent bed, dining chairs….well you get the idea. They are washable, and completely luxurious!

Whatever you, or more precisely your feline, chooses as their preferred cat bed make sure that it’s somewhere that isn’t in a high traffic area and feels cosy. If that happens to be in your bedroom, then join the club!

As sure as death and taxes, your feline will have their own set of quirky behaviours. Pussa appears to be unable to eat biscuits straight from the bowl, preferring to flick them onto the floor prior to consumption. Rather fortunately for me, she’s not afflicted with the same tendency with her wet food. Soph has her own version of an eating disorder. She often tries to eat my hair, especially when I’ve just washed it. Frankly she can get a bit too enthusiastic at times, and doesn’t even have the good sense to try and pull the grey ones out.

I can only assume Soph’s hair obsession is part of wanting to mark territory and to leave her scent on her environment, aka me. Pussa probably doesn’t like the feeling of her whiskers touching the sides of her bowl when she eats, but I think she understands that I’m not a fan of cleaning up residual tuna with whitemeat from the kitchen tiles every morning. Most of what we consider to be strange habits are explainable in context of cat behaviour in the wild. There is one cat characteristic however, that has developed because of domestication and human contact. Meowing.

Kittens meow to get their mothers attention when they’re young to communicate that it’s time for dinner, time for attention or time for bed. Adult cats however don’t communicate with each other by meowing, but rather through scent, body language and other vocalisations such as hissing or growling. Not that these communication skills are exclusively used amongst their own species since they use them with us too. Clever university types reckon that meowing in adult cats has developed as a cat-to-human communication tool because it manipulates us. No kidding?! They concluded that once a kitten was weaned from its mother, and it started to form relationships with humans, our astute kittys figured out that the whole meowing thing worked just as well on their human as it did with Mum. Those young cats saw that meowing often resulted in food being given (the best outcome), a lap to sit on (quite a good but second best to food) or at the very least a scratch on the head (OK I suppose if there’s nothing else on offer).

I read recently that the next frontier in studying cat behaviour is to determine if cats have accents. Nope, I don’t know why the world needs to know this either. Whether Pussa and Soph have Aussie accents seems to not impact my ability to understand the basic message behind their meows. The louder and more frequent, the more urgently food is required. Just when this hits fever-pitch we can bring out Soph’s Slate Plate and Pussa’s Feed Board and calm is restored. All quiet on the meowing front….at least until the next meal time.